What effect will the Tea Party have on the GOP and the Nov. Elections?

This week in Michigan enough Tea Party delegates showed up at a Republican meeting to elect delegates to the party's nominating convention for the election in November to defeat the current Republican party chairman's bid to be elected a delegate. This strikes me as a cataclysmic event for the Michigan GOP. The party chairman will attend the nominating convention but will not have a vote in the election of candidates for a variety of state offices (attorney general, secretary of state, lieutenant governor among others). A moderate, Rick Snyder, won the GOP nomination in the primary with the help of independents, GOP moderates and a significant number of crossover Democrats. It will interesting to watch the election campaign play out with Snyder running as a moderate while the Tea Party and right wing Republicans try to pull the party toward the Tea Party line--on social conservative issues, tax cuts, privatization of Social Security, repeal of the recent health care reforms.

Here's a link to an article from today's paper on the Tea Party's influence on the GOP in Michigan.

The Tea Party adds just another layer of seperation between people. Before it is all said, everyone will want to be the head of their own party. Politics is bullshit. All the labels and no matter what side your on we argue about whose shit stinks the worst.

When the year began, the stars could not have shone brighter for Marco Rubio, the fresh voice of newly invigorated conservatives who embodied the change that frustrated grass-roots Republicans demanded from inside their own party.

The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

This week, facing a more complicated path than he had anticipated in his race for a United States Senate seat, he is hoping to begin a second act.

The Florida primary on Tuesday was once going to be Mr. Rubio’s chance to dispatch his main Republican opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist. But Mr. Crist bolted the party four months ago rather than face Mr. Rubio in the primary and is running as an independent in a three-way race.

Now, facing intense competition for the moderate Republicans and independents who could be the keys to victory in one of the nation’s most closely divided states, Mr. Rubio is trying to show that he is more than just an insurgent protest candidate — and he is breaking with some Tea Party orthodoxy in the process.

Mr. Rubio spends less and less time trying to tap into the discontent that has been at the forefront of the midterm elections. A wiser course for Republicans, he said, is offering an alternative, not simply being the angry opposition.

“The solution isn’t just to paralyze government,” Mr. Rubio said in an interview as he traveled the state last week from here in the Panhandle to Miami. “Vote for us because you couldn’t possibly vote for them? That’s not enough. It may win some seats, but it won’t take you where you want to be.”

The Teabagers are getting substantially shut out. Once, a lamp post could have beaten the unpopular Harry Reid - but stupid comments from that dingbat Angle have put Harry back in contention. John McCain was in hot water running against a teabagger in AZ. That nut self-destructed. It remains to be seen if the libertarian faction of the teabaggers will survive in the person of Rand Paul. Perhaps he can coast in if he doesn't give any interviews between now and November. Right now every time Rant talks, he sinks in the polls. Scott Brown was a person I was prepared to hate, the Tea Party Senator from MA. But he insists on representing the people of Massachusettes, and that means he frequently votes a sane (and moderate) position. He also snubbed Sarah Palin and the Teabagger bus tour when they were in Boston.

Overall, I expect the teabaggers to do badly - not a complete shutout - but nearly so - in 2010. I expect them to double-down in 2012 by putting up Sarah Palin to run against President Obama and go down in a humiliating defeat. (I think Pat Paulsen could run a wrie-in candidate and beat Sarah Palin in 2012, even though Pat's been dead for 13 years.)

Here's the scarey part. If/when the teabaggers go down in disgrace in 2010 and 2012, I expect a violent backlash in 2013. I seriously expect domestic right-wing terrorism when President Obama is re-elected.

The tea party movement may do better in November than you predict. Given who they are and where they are coming from, any results are a huge victory. The bigger issue in my mind is how destructive the tea party movement will be to the Republican party in 2012 and into the future. What was once a lunatic fringe is starting to look a lot like the Republican party base (although the base was always a bit nutty). This is big problem for a party that wants to win elections in the long-run.

YOU are the lunatic fringe. You, Ralph, Sylvie, you are the lunatic, antisocial, and bigoted fringe. Your version of intellectually heavy thought is to use a term of sexual deviancy as a mocking rebuttal. Clearly grade-school playground maturity, here.

The TEA Party is your doctors, lawyers, teachers, cops, dentists, farmers, mechanics, contractors, nurses, administrators, managers, ranchers, and every other walk of life who has decided that there is simply no wisdom in Washington DC. None at all.

You actually BELIEVE they can do something. When to any person with half a brain, it is patently obvious they're utterly out of control and lack the sense of even a grammar school kid.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims we have 15 million unemployed. When Bush signed the Bailout, and then Obama signed the Stimulus, he promised it would slow unemployment, and hold it below 8%. If you now believe that Obama is capable of ANYTHING, you are utterly beyond hope. Since becoming president, Obama and Congress have spent more than 2 trillion dollars of bailout and stimulus money, and have accomplished. Wait for it.... NEGATIVE RESULTS.

You realize, of course, that EVERY unemployed person could be paid 50,000 a year, one half to dig holes and the other to fill those holes, and we would have ZERO unemployment, and we'd still have more than a TRILLION dollars left over of all that money. Obviously, one the most stupid wastes of money you can think of. Yet, it would have been FAR LESS STUPID than what was done.

Obama continues to insist he needs more stimulus money, needs to keep spending, and that the source of the debt is the PEOPLE's failure to give the federal government twice as much as they already do. That's what it would have taken to finance the deficits we expect to see.

We are doctors, lawyers, businessmen, entrepreneurs and the list is endless. We are every race, religion, ethnicity, and we range from the poor to the very rich. We recognize your arrogant condescension, and the fact that your thinking is just as utterly insane and as completely loony as the thinking running Washington DC. Except you think you're morally, intellectually, and educationally superior to us. So much so that you believe yourself justified in referring to us, who are far greater in number than your ideological soul mates in DC, possess quantities of wisdom and experience so monumentally far exceeding yours, in the most denigrating, vile, insulting and degrading language you can dream up. Things parents would have washed their children's mouth out with soap for, and beyond any bounds of civilized human behavior.

Yet, you whine and moan and screech to the management demand anyone who uses the time honored word "ignorant" or "stupid" be shut up.

Not only are you hypocritical beyond all bounds of decency, you are stupid beyond all bounds of normalcy.

We, the TEA Party people, and those who agree with the basic premise that government has grown beyond all rational, wise, considered, sensible, or any other boundaries in both reach, control, power, spending, and meddling in our daily lives.

We've been long suffering, believing for the last 30 years or so that what was going on was aberration, that nobody really would try to continue down the road it has. That what these guys who were supposed SO smart were doing had some merit in the end. It was the BIG LIE. Yeah, we're late to the party. Slow to action. We have lives to live, businesses to run, families to raise, and normally little time to devote to studying the merits of far off senators and representatives who aren't supposed to be affecting your life negatively at all.

But it isn't so. And so now we, the VAST MAJORITY of responsible and prudent citizens have decided it is time to replace the thinking in DC. To eradicate YOUR kind of monumentally stupid blather with people who may not be polished, or politically correct, or never say a "non controversial" word or whatever, like the political class has honed to a perfection. We don't care if they think that masturbation is a sin. We're tolerant of moral beliefs not just like our own. We don't care if they have complex views of the ADA and CRA, believing that certain aspects of them have been bad. We tend to agree.

Further, we don't care if they aren't the perfect color of bland or don't have fantastic speechifying skills. What we do care, is that they're willing to run, and don't have the same "beyond all hope" idiotic mindset that's currently running Washington DC. It is obvious to a blind, deaf, and dumb ant that the course we're on is directly and momentarily leaping off a precipice marked "global economic destruction". Whatever semantics you might whine about concerning irrelevant issues of religion, or other politically correct nonsense is of no concern to us.

The nature and course of our federal and state governments must be corrected, and corrected NOW. It is not time for tiny steps and little bitty nibblings. It is time for big, bold, and responsible actions. To do nothing is equally as bad as what is going on, and everything right now that Democrats represent, is what is wrong.

"Childish antics"? Wow. Hello Pot, meet Kettle. Your entire point, or lack thereof, was prefaced with "nuh uh- YOU ARE." By far, by far and away, you are the most childish poster on any of these hubs. This is ridiculous. Did you fill up your coloring book and need something to do?

The Tea Party began as an anti tax protest, 2 months after 97% of the country got a tax cut, at a time when taxes had not increased in 17 years and were at their lowest point since the 50s. Yes, you are idiots, deep fried butter eating, idiots.

The tea party is having trouble defining itself. They were started on one principle: taxes are too high and should be lowered. That's too simple a platform to unite a large group of people. Now we're seeing tea party "sub-groups" getting kicked out for making controversial statements. They don't really have a united stance on most non-tax issues, and that's their problem. One example is the NYC mosque. The tea party seems to be against it, but then one of their heroes Ron Paul comes out and says the anti-mosque movement is basically just bigotry and Islamophobia and he refuses to support it.

If the tea party can't unite, they'll end up doing more harm than good in the coming elections. They'll take away votes from candidates who are on the same side on most of the issues, and by splitting up votes they'll hand the election to candidates who are on the opposite side on most issues.

If Tea Party is to do anything, besides making things emotional, they will have to align with voter's or they will not make it. They need to find one common voice. In fringe areas they are winning. But not every where. Momentum does carry, so time will tell. They are main stream, but not a majority yet. Its building, and the voice is unifing. I think many folks are very unsure of any party right now, and well should be.

RalphI know you want to have a real discussion, but this was just too funny:

"Ken Buck is the Tea Party candidate running against establishment pick Jane Norton in Colorado’s Republican Senate primary. He is caught on tape by a Democratic operative saying, "Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera?"

ahahaha--too funny!

And tea-party candidate Jeff Perry of Mass. is in real trouble..because he's a real nasty character. imo. But like many of them, they hide behind "Patriotism".In fact, his "people" around here are known as thugs.

The Tea Party is main stream America, it doesn't matter if the candidates they endorse win, or in more moderate republicans win, what we are seeing is the wholesale rejection of progressive ideology and a rout of leftist democrats. Even Harry Reid recognizes that he must move right in order to hold onto power, coming out against the Mosque in NYC is evidence of that.

The height of irony: a Tea Party supporter calls someone "uneducated".

Fine. You are going to win. You are going to march in with your tear down government agenda and find that there is nothing you can tear down. You are going to try to ram through your Christian ideology junk and find the courts slapping you down at every attempt. You are going to present your simplistic solutions (Simple Sara Says) and find that those too will not fly because the rest of the country isn't quite so naive and unintelligent.

"We are dedicated to uphold the Constitution and our rights as citizens of these United States of America. It is in our best interests to join in the "Tea Party Movement" to speak out and voice our thoughts on what we need to do in the United States to ensure our children have the ability to sustain this wonderful country. We are committed to keeping government from excessive spending and becoming so overpowering that we would lose our individual rights."

Tea Party Patriots on their website cites the following as their mission statement:

"The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets."

Now, if you ask me there doesn't seem to be anything radical, angry, scary, or uneducated in the agenda of the Tea Party. It seems the Tea Party isn't an organization at all, but a grass roots movement of Americans fed up with irresponsible government that has shirked it's fiduciary duty to the citizens of the United States, and continues to overstep it's authority as outlined and limited by the Constitution. I think this is a valid, educated view, that you are welcome to mock, but your ridicule does nothing to change the facts and serves only to show a lack of information on which to base your views and a large degree of hysteria and hyperbole which is spewed by opponents to discredit and denigrate the Tea Party movement. Sadly, such tactics prevent any discussion on the issues or any dialog on working together to solve the nations problems.

Thanks for the NYT links. Nothing like a few facts. However, your comment

"Now, if you ask me there doesn't seem to be anything radical, angry, scary, or uneducated in the agenda of the Tea Party."

is way off base. You must have missed the signs at Tea Party rallies depicting President Obama with a bone in his nose or the ones claiming he's a secret Muslim born in Kenya. Although their motives may be sincere, their knowledge of Constitutional law and basic economics is deficient. Moreover, the movement has been encouraged by Dick Armey's FreedomWorks organization which is about as sinister as could be. Also by people like Andrew Breitbart who should be working for the National Enquirer.

I'm surprised that someone with a liberal view would attempt to paint a grass roots movement with a broad brush based upon a few signs. That's like saying because blacks are 24% of the population of NY and commit 68% of all murders, rapes, assualts and robberies, all blacks in NY are criminals. Would you say that?

I would argue that Dick Armey has hijacked the movement for his own political purposes and is not the one driving this movement. Besides, Obama and the democrats has Moveon.org, OFA, and a number of organizations funded by George Soros directing their agenda, does that make them stupid, or scary, or, communist?

You're free to dislike Breitbart, or even the National Enquirer, though the latter did get the story right on John Edwards when the rest of the media was giving him a pass, so I'm not sure working for them would be considered a bad thing.

That's what you always say. But we know what we see and read. I know who the people are in this community who support this "movement" and they are all narrow minded, small minded, suspicious and nasty fools who have no idea about much of anything except they hate the guvmint. I see the same thing on line.

Y'all want to go back to some agrarian society with no educational standards, without consumer protection, a world where you can raise your children to be as unknowing as you are, where you can discriminate against anyone who looks or thinks differently than you do. You'd cut funds to research that you don't understand or that might lead to things in conflict with your religious beliefs. You'd destroy the very infrastructure that created the lifestyle you enjoy.

Discriminate? The Progressives have a long history of that. It was FDR that put the Japanese in internment camps. It was LBJ and the democrats that weakened the civil rights bill proposed by Eisenhower in 1957. No one is more hypocritical, more racist, than progressives and their poster child for big government Woodrow Wilson, who created the income tax and the FTC among other federal agencies.

Do you know that political parties have flipped like magnets more than once? No, of course you don't. You think the Democrat party has always been liberal and that the GOP has always been as it is today.

Why don't you start by studying Lincoln? Go read his speeches and try to imagine what political party he would join today.

No, it is conservatives who always are and always will be in the wrong side of everything. From slavery to womens rights to taxes to race equality and gay rights, conservatives are always, always wrong.

"You're free to dislike Breitbart, or even the National Enquirer, though the latter did get the story right on John Edwards when the rest of the media was giving him a pass, so I'm not sure working for them would be considered a bad thing."

The Enquirer occasionally gets something right. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while.

I agree that the Tea Party is an authentic grass roots movement, albeit quite ignorant of post-revolutionary war era history, modern economics and wise public policy. They have driven out of the GOP several authentic, principled conservatives whom I respect. Who do we get?--Michelle Bachman, Sharron Angle, Mario Rubio, J.D. Hayworth (fortunately McCain has pulled into the lead over this nutjob) and other ignorant extremists who want to dismantle the government, but are clueless on what to do if they succeeded.

Well there again those are simply your opinions based upon your view of the role government should play in the lives of the American people and not based on the principles on the Constitution, and you certainly are entitled to them, but the opposite view is just as valid, as educated and as principled as you imagine your progressive views to be.

What constitutional principles are, in your opinion, being violated? I'm not aware of any. The Supreme Court recently affirmed Second Amendment rights to bear arms. What other constitutional issues are concerning you? Try to be specific, if you can.

You can show me all the polls you want, but every TP person I have ever met in real life or on-line displays outrageous ignorance and inferior reasoning abilities. They may be making money and they may have gone go college, but they are not intelligent. All I ever hear is the same old nonsense about small government and low taxes - which is NOT going to happen - and religiously inspired ugliness that will never get by the courts.

Tea Party is the party of ignorance and greed, racism and religious bias, fervent and blind patriotism and has nothing to offer anyone with a working brain. The Tea Party is on the wrong side of every issue and if they ever do get control, it will be proof of the utter failure of our educational ststems.

Ignorant of the reality of government, yes. I have no idea how loudly you talk about it.

It is typical TP. Cut government waste! Where? No answer except "overpaid". No justification behind this call for cutting the wages of hard working people, no idea what actual effecfs that would cause, just another Simple Sara Says Solution.

And then Habee brings up studies, another bugaboo. Of course the descriptions she provudes probably came straight from Fox News and are not what the studies are really about, but oh, the waste!

Look up the studies for yourself. I didn't get these from FOX news. I rarely watch television, but I do read a lot - from many different sources. As ignorant and foolish as I am, I can read. Amazing how I got through college and into an honor society, huh??

I'm not a Tea Partier, but I'll be glad to tell you what I'd cut! I'd cut out some of the studies that we taxpayers are funding. I'm all for discoveries, but when we have hungry and homeless citizens among us, I think the money could be much better spent.

$2 million to study Chinese prostitutes?

$400,000 to study whether or not men know how to put on condoms?

The sexual habits of South American tree frogs?

Half a million to find out whether gay men indlulge in unprotected sex while intoxicated? I could answer that one for free!

And then we have those wonderful art grants. I love art. I appreciate art. My husband and I are both artists. but if I were hungry and had the choice between a hot meal or having the chance to view a crucufix in a glass of urine, I'd take the free meal - every time. Call me unsophisticated or ignorant, but I assure you that most people would choose the same way I would.

Don't say that all these millions are just a drop in the proverbial bucket. That money would go along way in helping others!

Oh, of ourse you would. I love it when these moron politicians wave sone 'yseless" study around.

Yes, they ARE just drops, but most of them actually are done for excellent reasons that the general public is too uneducated and ignorant to understand. Some of these things coukd even turn out to be vital, but you don't understand thst, do you?

You're entitled to your opinion even if they are wrong and uninformed, yes, even if you refuse to seek the truth and educate yourself, and yes you are free to cast aspersions upon all those that do not share your views, but none of that changes anything nor supports your argument, you are knowing a product of the very things you claim to disdain. Is it difficult to look at yourself in the mirror?

She says progressive ideology and leftist democrats....but leftists say Obama is a corporate sell-out just like Bush, They say he is Bush III. So which is it?

Never did get that....whenever people on the right bash him they will say things like: he's escalated the war, he's helping big banks, he's just like Bush. So then why don't they support him?

And the left say: he backed down on single-payer, he bailed out the banks, he's continuing the war.

Meanwhile, he's done a LOT of good from my point of view. I like him and his family, and it's nice to have a president that doesn't go around like a phony macho soldier all the time.

It really boggles me.......I see these bumper stickers with 1/20/13 on them...have since the beginning.

Just what has he done that deserves routing before his ideas even have a chance to take effect?

Or I should say--his ideas ARE taking effect. Business is up 20% on Cape Cod, according to the paper.Stem cell research on brain-damage and nerve disease is coming back into play.Women and doctors don't have to fear for their lives when considering abortion......legally that is.And he speaks to the ignored Americans who Bush and Cheney might as well have spit on.

It's only going to get better....doomsday predictions aside.I still hold to my dream.....Obama is a good thing.

It's looking more and more like there is going to be the destruction of both political parties in this nation. The Dems are doomed, no matter what this November. They pushed Obama's unpopular Progressive agenda so hard that they've pretty much alienated not only independents, but the "other" 50%. The other 50% of people who for perhaps the first time ever are getting involved in the political process. That is why most pundits and partisans have no clue as to what is really going to happen over the next few election cycles.

In Nov. the Republicans are going to win big. But that doesn't mean they're going to keep it. If the party goes the way of Lindsey Graham and other pseudo-Progressives, most voters are going to bail. Which will be interesting. It would be unprecedented to have the American people completely abandon one political party and within an election cycle abandon the other political party for the opposition. Within a generation we will have seen the pendulum swing one way then the other.

People, for the first time, will have living proof that both political parties have their own interests, not those of the people they supposedly serve at heart. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

pcunix, I'd like to hear, from you, some of the crafty manipulators. You don't seem to get that this movement is a real grass roots one. There are no national leaders or conventions, no high posts of any kind. It was set up that way on purpose. But then again, you can't seem to comprehend that people can spontaneously get together and work together without some sort of "Glorious Leader" to keep the proles in line. I wonder how you'll explain away the changes that are coming?

I'm worried that, even if the Tea Party does begin to demand a return to the Constitution, it will only be a matter of time before we have pro-centralized tea party candidates who get re-elected just because they are "tea party candidates"...

... the same way that "conservatives" (who aren't conservative) still get elected just because they are "republican candidates".

Good job not answering the question. You have never identified any of the "crafty" people that have supposedly led a majority of Americans away from the Progressive ideal. It has nothing to do with the fact that you and people who believe like you do are in the minority.

The one thing you can't seem to understand is the difference between our viewpoints if either of us is wrong. The good thing about a more liberty oriented society is that you can always centralize things if it turns out that my thought processes are wrong. If your thought processes are wrong, however, the only way to get rid of a centralized authoritarian system is to revolt against it. That usually means violence.

Good job picking up on clamping down on immigration leading to violence. Too bad the Anointed One can't seem to figure that one out and is making it harder for people with assets to leave the country. If they left, he couldn't fleece them, after all.

Ralph seems to really get what's going on. I don't understand his viewpoint. I don't see anything wrong with turning out backs on decades of post-WW II political processes. Those processes, after all, gave us thing like Vietnam, the Cold War, Johnson's Great Society and other ills of the late 20th century.

Is it that hard to name names? I, for one, am interesting in hearing those names. I'd actually look them up and see if there is anything to what you say. I stand by my minority statement, however. In poll after poll about 30% of Americans want a socialist Progressive state. I, for one, find that number horrifyingly high, but hey, you can believe what you want. 30% is still a minority, no matter how you try to dress it up.

Pcunix, your words: "Great nations have fallen to mass stupidity before. If it happens here, you could see an exodus of the bright and talented and the Tea Party leaders can sit around and pray over it as it happens."

If this is so then why are great minds clamoring to get here. Doctorates and Masters Degrees from Russia, India, Pakistan, Africa, in some what of a desired rush. Great minds will not give up Freedom, they run towards it!

The continuous criticism of the Tea Party as being "stupid" "uneducated" or somehow less enlightened then the intellectual liberal elites is growing tiresome besides being inaccurate, it demonstrates the arrogance of liberal thinking, that somehow only liberals are smart enough to make wise decisions on economic and social policies. What a joke!

I don't like to toss that word around lightly either. I have some TP supporters down here who I could not respect intellectually long before they made their politics known, but there are others who are plainly not "stupid" or even particularly South of "bright".

They are simply uninformed, angry and confused. They don't ever seem to be able to see any shades of gray and always have simplistic solutions and very predictable opinions on almost any issue that comes up.

I know they are afraid. I know they think they are heading in the right direction, but sadly their vision is very limited. They are not "stupid" but they are not really thinking through what the effects of TP desires would be.

I think many are angry and that anger clouds their judgment. I do try to engage the brighter ones now and then, but it seldom gets very far because of their stubborn refusal to entertain any thought that hasn't been designed to inflame their emotions.

So the people who manipulate them wave the flag and lead them in prayer and they think this is good. It isn't.

Because you haven't destroyed us yet. You are trying, you keep threatening us with "Wait til November", but so far, wiser people still hold the controls.

If TP people do get control and really are foolish enough to enact the agenda they say they will, I think we could see exodus or even civil war again.

But - I don't think that will happen. I think your candidates are playing you just as Scott Brown did and are far wiser about the realities of necessary government than any of you are. I think they will make a lot of noise and we will continue pretty much as we have before - assuming very many of them even get elected at all.

Absolutely correct. The wingnuts whip up hysteria to get the rubes to the polls, but once elected they revert to their old habits - massive spending increases, sex scandals, disastrous foreign policy - all while espousing their fiscal responsibility, family values, and foreign policy expertise credentials

The teabaggers are always good for a laugh, especially when they're back tracking.. They've lost most of the primaries they've entered, and suddenly the "moral imperative" of defeating the RINOs and "taking our country back from the socialists" was never the goal in the first place. A gentle nudge of the moderates toward becoming slightly more conservative was all the gun-toting, God-fearing Momma Grizzlies were trying to accomplish.

The TP will do wonders for the Republican party, if they let it. The TP does not have the political capital to emerge as a third party. I don't believe it will take over the Republican party. It is severly disorganized. It has allowed its leadership to be determined by the most outspoken. Regardless of "WHAT" they are saying. I'ts only positive is that it may root out Democrat operatives that have infiltrated the Republican party. In the short run it will only moderately help the Republican party. In the long run it could create true separation between the Democrat and Republican parties. Right now Republican's only appear conservative during election season. As much as I disagree with the left, their actions match their rhetoric.

It doesn't take any real effort to make fun of the TP. Just quote them verbatim and voila!

"We needed to have the press be our friend ... We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported." —Nevada GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, during an interview with Fox News

"I guarantee it's one of their long-term goals, to have one sort of borderless mass continent.'' —Kentucky GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, on the future of North America and secret U.S. plans for a European Union-style merger with Mexico and Canada

''I don't like the idea of telling private business owners -- I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant -- but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership.''—Kentucky GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, arguing that government shouldn't require private businesses to serve customers of all races, interview with Louisville Courier-Journal, April 25, 2010

When you consider the fact that these are not rank and file members, but rather the darlings of the party - their best and brightest, you wonder what kind of grass these roots sprang from.

You can see it here, too. The ugliness, the barely concealed racism, the thinly disguised homophobia and of course the strong "Christian Values" and enthusiastic flag waving that fires them up. You just have to read between the lines.

But of course they are correct to say that is not representative of all of them. Some are just greedy little would-be super-capitalists who hate to see their tax money going to anyone else. Those TP folks are just small minded people with no ability to see beyond their own noses. They are ugly in their own way, but are not the bone in the nose kind.

But you do notice that they don't condemn those others, do they? No, they want their votes too badly.

Trust me, I have been to rallies there is equal numbers of libertarian minded people who are sick of the religious rights control of the party of small government too. It is a coalition of different ideas not what you think it is.

You can't convince him, he knows what it is and he knows because he is intellectually superior, and this is obvious based upon his progressive views which as we all know are the only correct views to have.

I think in many races they will ruin things for the GOP, which is what the GOP deserves for losing site of what the party was supposed to represent.... the Tea Party platforms and feelings.

This is a great opportunity for all you socialists to form your own version and start running to the left of the Dems, I mean are you all really giddy about giving control to Democrats who forgot what they represent too?

If this were to happen you might actually encourage a real democracy in this country with 4 parties which would be a Godsend.

Only way you are going to fix the Democrat party is to form your own version of the tea party and take charge

"So while both reports confirm that public employees do, in fact, earn more on average than private sector workers, the public sector workforce earns this higher average salary because the average employee is better educated and has more experience."

"State and local sector employees are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to have a college or advanced degree. The major driver in this pattern is that government workers have jobs that demand more education, like teachers, university professors, nurses and social workers."

As I've said before in these forums, I have spent time working in both the public and private sectors, and it has been my experience that government workers are generally better educated and more committed to their jobs than those in the private sector.

Government workers such as teachers, social workers, urban planners, parks managers, etc., live in the communities in which they are working, so they have a stake in how those communities function and grow. It's very easy to sit back and judge a group of people from the outside looking in, but most government workers are dedicated public servants who understand they are public servants and are conscientious about the role they play in building and maintaining their communities.

Also, many of them give much more than they are required. Working in government can often be very difficult - verbal nonsense about high pay for little work from people like Arthur is hardly unusual. Putting up with rude behavior isn't limited to government jobs, but they do tend to be the brunt of a lot of ignorant anger.

I worked in the HQ of a major corporation, for the federal government and for a state government. There were capable, hard working people, goof-offs, incompetents and waste in roughly equal measure in all three organizations. Compensation was significantly higher in the private corporation and roughly similar in the state and federal organizations.

Well, maybe I got too angry at Habee over that study stuff, but it is something that sets me off because I hear so much of that from the know-nothings who live around this community. No understanding of science, and almost always misrepresenting or distorting or even outright lying about the real purpose of the study. I just get very angry with yahoos and yes, I know Habee is not a yahoo but that study waving just reminded me of them!

I have to tell you. I have debated with you in the past. I have never seen you display such anger as you have in the past days. You normally advocate tollerance. Look at your post, your labeling, mind reading, stereotyping. I don't know whats going on in your life right now, but you seem to be stressed to the max.

No, it's just when I see some much ignorance displayed about taxes and government, it gets very frustrating. Maybe I am afraid that the TP is more powerful than I think it is. Maybe I am afraid that this ridiculous movement really can do damage.

Maybe I'm surrounded by too many very dumb people where I live. I don't know.

I'm afraid the Democrat party died around the time Zell Miller left office. I didn't vote for Clinton, however during his tenure I had to remind myself that I didn't agree with the majority of what he stood for. The point is that he was likeable. I see NOTHING likeable on the "D" list today.

Clinton WAS likeable! He had people skills, with an amazing memory. A friend of mine met him at some dinner, and they discussed the friend's bird dog. My pal saw Bill years later, and he asked him about the bird dog: "Last time we talked, you were having a problem with one of your quail dogs. How did that work out for you?"

I have heard that about Clinton -- amazingly charismatic. And smart. She's smart, too, btw:-).

I'm late to this party about the "study" claiming that the reason public employees are paid higher is that their work demands them to be more highly educated.That is RIDICULOUS. You can't just lump all public employees together. The lady sitting behind the information desk at DMV is not the same as a policy analyst in the Capitol or a college professor. Anyone who wants to challenge me on that, come on out to Sacramento and observe the diversity of state (and city and county) workers for yourself.Just like you can't lump all private-sector employees together. You'd be saying that engineers and lawyers are the same as produce pickers or Walmart checkers.

Arthur doesn't get - and doesn't want to get it - that no one in the governement asks "Will that be paper or plastic?" or 'Do you want to supersize that?" Arthur thinks the because the private sector is giving a lot of employees the shaft - offering less benefits - less medical insurance - and less vacation - then there's something wrong with the governement for offering approximately the same wages and benefits (adjusted to cost-of-living) as they have for decades.

Yes - there's a difference and two causes - neither of which Arthur will admit. First - the government employs a higher percentage of highly educated workers. Second - and this is huge - labor in the private sector is being exploited by management - who use the labor suplus to push down wages. Employees in the private sector should be angry - but it's misdirected to try to send that anger at the governement.

Hey, pals - don't forget that I was a government employee! And believe me, I deserved much higher pay than I received. I'm not saying ALL government workers do. Have you ever had dealings with the IRS?? I could tell you some ridiculously funny (not at the time) true stories.

I actually have a letter of apology from the IRS. I'm thinking of auctioning it on e-bay as it must be incredibly rare and maybe valuable.

Due to a paperwork error on their part, I was given notice that I owed a tremendous sum of money (more than 5X my company's annual sales) in unpaid taxes and penalties. This notice was also sent to my customers (they got theirs before I got mine).

The issue was solved almost immediately after the notices went out, and no real harm was done. Funny now, not so much then.

Our IRS story was not resolved so quickly. It took us 11 months, 48 phone calls, and 12 registered letters. We FINALLY got our money, plus interest, but never an apology. A few years later, we had another problem. The IRS said that the Board of Education was not withholding any federal taxes from my paycheck. Once again, they were WRONG!!

And now we're having another IRS problem. I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that they were about to place a lein on our home for unpaid 2008 taxes. I sent them a copy of the paid check from my bank, but I haven't heard anything else. I called my accountant today, and she's on it.

The Koch brothers/FoxNews puppets of the Tea Party may in fact think they are working for freedom. (many Soviet operatives of a century ago were duped similarly).

What they would achieve in reality (if they had a snowball's chance in hell of taking over the government)is to transfer power from elected representatives - where we all have a voice - to corporate boardrooms where few of us do.

As opposed to transferring power form the legislature, where we supposedly have power, to the bureaucrats in Washington? How does that make us any better off? Heck, when you get right down to it, there isn't much difference between the way a government agency is set up and how a large corporation is run.

Or do you really think that the IRS is justified in the way they do things. Or the FDA letting drugs through that kill people? Or the President interfering with the INS? Or any of a thousand instances of bureaucratic insanity that plague that city on the Potomac?

How do you improve something as corrupt as our government. More to the point by giving government power over our lives, we've pretty much assured that we're going to be fighting one another over the scraps the government lets us fight over. Let me ask you this Ron; who's a bigger threat to the people of the US, Bernie Madoff or the people who run Social Security?

Listening to you - the argument seems to be - "The boat leaks - therefore we must SINK THE BOAT!!!"

Wow! Government isn't perfect. TRUE! The IRS gets it it wrong sometimes. (Personally, I wish the IRS has to pay penalties for serious screw-ups. Habee could buy me lunch sometime.) The FDA gets it wrong sometime when they weigh the potential benefit to one group against the risk to a different group posed by the same drug. When they get it rght, it doesn't make headlines. Every federal agency at one time or annother has screwed up from MMS to the FAA. But hey have also gotten it right, too. How will abolishing these agencies improve the situation?

When you come down to it, the adults in the room consider consequences - and the childen push for knee-jerk reactions with no thought to the end result.

What you don't consider Doug is that any time you have government interference in the marketplace, you open up the government regulatory agency to corruption by the very market they're trying to regulate. The FDA is a great example. If you don't think the drug companies have a cozy relationship with the FDA, you're not thinking clearly.

What we need are truly independent rating agencies. Ever hear of Underwriter's Laboratories? They're a completely private company, they've been in business for over 100 years, and they pass safety standards for household appliances, etc. Unlike the FDA, UL has to protect their good name. If they start, for the sake of money, selling their brand to the highest bidder then the resultant degradation of that brand will spell the end of the company. So there is a built in incentive to do good rather than evil.

Government, by comparison, only works by forcing people to do things. Don't pay your taxes? Zap, IRS, jail, destitution. Speed? Ticket, fine, court. I don't know about you, but I find coercion the lest effective way of getting people to do things.

Interesting idea about fining the IRS, but it'll never happen. Government bureaucracies could never survive if they had to admit that they made a mistake, the whole thing would collapse.

Such a mechanism already exists under our laws to some extent. You can receive your attorneys fees if you are a prevailing party against a government agency unless the agency's position was substantially justified. Getting these awards isn't easy, nor should it be. As satisfying as it may be to get a pot of coin from a government agency, at the end of the day you are getting money from other taxpayers. But if you are interested about this procedure, you should Google the Equal Access to Justice Act.

Which is kind of my point. You might get some "coin" from your fellow taxpayers, but the agency involved isn't really chastised in any way. Unlike a private company, they'll still get their budget the next year. And let's fact it, unless you hit people in their pocketbook, the chances of them making any serious changes are next to nil.

I still say the cards are stacked against you. Even if you do go to court you have to go before a judge. Who appoints federal judges? The government. Your argument might hold more water if it wasn't for the changes made to jury trials over the last century. In the 1920's and 1930's prosecutors were having a lot of cases thrown out by juries, either because they felt the prosecutor was prosecuting a stupid case or the jury felt the law shouldn't be on the books. The jury was meant to be a final check on government run amok.

Prosecutors and judges, along with defense attorneys, when a person had one; engaged in a bit of a conspiracy. Judges began "instructing" juries on how they should deliberate and lawyers began controlling the type and kind of information juries had at their disposal. In a case such as the one described a jury cannot come to a sane conclusion. They don't have the freedom to judge things for themselves and they don't have all the information needed to come to the right decision.

That's why, more and more, wining or losing a lawsuit is like winning the lottery. It's a craps shoot either way.

What argument? I don't think I was taking a position other than when you win a monetary judgment against a government agency other taxpayers are essentially paying your award. People didn't seem to know that the Equal Access To Justice Act existed so I was just trying to share.

I do not agree with the last three paragraphs of your post but I do not have the energy to say why. Suffice it to say that I have a different view of the legal system.

Sounds like your usual anti-government libertarian paranoia. But paranoia doesn't necessarily mean that nobody's trying to tilt the scales of justice. For example millions of special interest money is spent on state supreme court and other judicial elections.

Justice is for sale in Michigan.

That's the most logical conclusion to draw from a report that ranks Michigan third among states in cash spent on TV ads from 2000-09. The total was $11 million, making judicial attack ads one of the few growth areas in the Michigan economy during that time.

If the deep-pocket interests spending that money (organized labor, business and others with private hopes and aspirations for the judiciary) didn't think they were getting something from the courts in return, well, they wouldn't spend it, would they?

That's one reason Michigan earns its national reputation as a judicial backwater. In 2008, a University of Chicago Law School study ranked our Supreme Court as the least independent, saying it was tied too closely with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The same study, if conducted a decade or more before, might have reached the same conclusion with a different political twist. Back then, unions wielded undue influence over the judiciary.

The ugliness of 2008 was the ultimate low. That's when millions were spent smearing then-Chief Justice Clifford Taylor, who lost his seat to Diane Hathaway. But expect that to be surpassed in the next few months, when liberal organizations target Justice Bob Young, hoping to gain control of the court in advance of congressional and legislative redistricting.

This is not the way it's supposed to work. And it's damaging to interests across the state that need and deserve a more independent judicial branch that is not as given to wild political swings.

The only viable fix is to come up with a more impartial, or at least politically agnostic, process for appointing them. There is just no way to force judges into the political arena every six or eight years, let them slog it out in elections that enjoy little, if any, distinction from the ones for political offices, and expect that the process won't be tainted.

The best way to devise an alternate judicial selection process is a constitutional convention, which Michigan voters will have a chance to embrace in the November election. Should Michigan's process model the federal judiciary, with executive appointments and legislative confirmation, or could there be a bipartisan commission that recommends a slate of judges for gubernatorial appointment? The models for selection could be vigorously debated as part of the effort to draft a new Michigan constitution.

But even without a convention, Michigan could eradicate judicial elections through referendum.

Whatever the course for change, this should be the beginning of a more dignified and appropriate way to stock our judiciary.

"What we need are truly independent rating agencies. Ever hear of Underwriter's Laboratories?... If they start, for the sake of money, selling their brand to the highest bidder then the resultant degradation of that brand will spell the end of the company. So there is a built in incentive to do good rather than evil."

Typical libertarian thinking - the private sector can do anything and do it better than the government. Sounds great until reality intrudes. I quote Palul Krugman on one huge factor in the housing collapse.

"No, the e-mail messages you should be focusing on are the ones from employees at the credit rating agencies, which bestowed AAA ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of dubious assets, nearly all of which have since turned out to be toxic waste. And no, that’s not hyperbole: of AAA-rated subprime-mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006, 93 percent — 93 percent! — have now been downgraded to junk status.

What those e-mails reveal is a deeply corrupt system...

The rating agencies began as market researchers, selling assessments of corporate debt to people considering whether to buy that debt. Eventually, however, they morphed into something quite different: companies that were hired by the people selling debt to give that debt a seal of approval.

Those seals of approval came to play a central role in our whole financial system, especially for institutional investors like pension funds, which would buy your bonds if and only if they received that coveted AAA rating.

It was a system that looked dignified and respectable on the surface. Yet it produced huge conflicts of interest. Issuers of debt — which increasingly meant Wall Street firms selling securities they created by slicing and dicing claims on things like subprime mortgages — could choose among several rating agencies. So they could direct their business to whichever agency was most likely to give a favorable verdict, and threaten to pull business from an agency that tried too hard to do its job. It’s all too obvious, in retrospect, how this could have corrupted the process..."

This is a classic example of where the UNREGULATED free market failed and millions have suffered catastrophic losses as a result. Given a game with no rules, the big players (moody's and Standard & Poors working for the biggest banks in the US) twisted the system to make billions by selling bonds with a fraudulent AAA rating.

The role of the government needs to be that of a referee. Can anyone (except a libertarian) think that football would not turn into chaos without someone who can throw a flag for offsides or a late hit. This is fact - not opinion and if you look at the voting record in Congress, the GOP has been the lpadog of Big Business. fighting regulation and reform every step of the way.

Government can be just as corrupt as business, but we can change government with votes. When it comes to my vote, I am just as rich as Bill Gates. Of course, after my vote Bill can exert a lot more influence, but that will always be true. I trust government far more than business because the checks and balances are built in.

I mention Billy Boy because the libertarian idea that unfettered business produces good results for consumers was never shown to be wrong so clearly as it was with Microsoft. Unfortunately probably 90% of the people who read this will have no idea why I say that, but it hardly matters anyway: as Doug said, rebuttals to the guvmint haters are pointless anyway.

Doug again you don't get it. Those companies that issued those AAA ratings were overseen by the SEC. Even with SEC oversight, they still were able to make fraudulent clams on the ratings of companies. Often times, there is a political component to the issuance of ratings. Take Greece, Spain and Portugal as an example. You haven't yet seen their ratings drop because of political pressure brought by the EU to keep EU ratings from tanking.

All regulatory agencies really do is make people think that these agencies are protecting them, when in reality not only do these agencies not have the resources they really need, they can never have the resources they need to meet their mandate. It's the nature of bureaucracy. The larger and more complex a bureaucracy is, the harder it is to get things done.

Your assertion that government act as a referee is also wrong. Because we elect our leaders, those leaders become open to campaign contributions from these companies; who can outspend any individual in the US, so that our leaders are beholden to those corporate interests you seem to hate so much.

So what really happens by increasing government oversight over industry is that you make it more susceptible to influence by special interests.

" Those companies that issued those AAA ratings were overseen by the SEC. Even with SEC oversight, they still were able to make fraudulent clams on the ratings of companies. "

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The SEC does not have or enforce any standards on how Moody's or Standard & Poors rate bonds. You are entitled to your opinion, but you can't just make up a rebuttal of falsehoods.

I gave a valid example where the unregulated free market failed with disastrous results. A fully unregulated market with no gov't interference exists - try Somallia. Don't like that, check a country like Brazil - the rich live like kings, rule the existing government, and the working class live in shantytowns of cardboard and tin. Chaos or hopeless poverty are the results of the system you espouse.

Do you think the $20 BILLION fund to compenstate citizens of the Gulf for losses due to the spill woould have happened without a strong federal government? Or do you like the idea of being a slave to the multinational corporations who would run all over the people of the USA?

Actually I do think that the 20 billion would have been put up without government interference for the same reason Denny's bent over backwards to prove they weren't racist back during the Clinton years. Perception does matter and people will stop buying from a company they see as behaving badly.

Congress passed a law in 2006 that gave the SEC oversight over rating agencies. You'll note that nobody in 2006 was worried about the subprime housing market and people were still giving AAA ratings to CDO's. This continued into 2007. So a full 2 years before the meltdown, the SEC had jurisdiction over rating agencies. So no, I'm not really wrong.

Somalia has governments, of a sort. They're called warlords. China had the same problem in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not exactly the same thing as having no government at all. I'd also be careful about using nations like Somalia as a basis for having no government. Most of their population is, after all, tribal based, illiterate and desperately poor. The US is none of those things.

Chris, what exactly is fair for the rich and corporations to pay? They're already taxed at a higher rate than a "poor" person. Or at least they were before they used their money to buy tax loopholes in the law, which is why our tax code expands every year.

And if you think most people who disagree with you make more than $250K, you're nuts. Even more so if you think that President Obama has in any way lessened the tax burden on anyone. Still time will tell which of us is right. I wonder if you be able to recognize your mistakes when that time comes.

That's exactly what the Tea Party would create here. The people at the rallies don't understand that they will be the ones living in the shantytowns. WE are already on our way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Village

But the "tea party"-backed Miller was boosted by an endorsement from Murkowski's longtime foe, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), as well as a controversial ballot measure, Proposition 2, that would require doctors to inform parents in order for a teenage girl to undergo an abortion.

The measure appeared to be turning out conservative-leaning voters in record numbers: As of early Wednesday morning, total turnout on Prop 2 exceeded the combined turnout in the Republican and Democratic Senate primaries by more than 10,000 voters, with 55 percent voting in favor and 45 percent opposed.

This is a three-day “boot camp” at FreedomWorks, the Washington advocacy group that has done more than any other organization to build the Tea Party movement. For 18 months, the group’s young staff has been conducting training sessions like this one across the country, in hotel conference rooms or basements of bars, shaping the inchoate anger of the Tea Party with its libertarian ideology and leftist organizing tactics.

The goal is to turn local Tea Party groups into a standing get-out-the-vote operation in Congressional districts across the country. Sarah Palin made community organizing a term of derision during the 2008 presidential campaign; FreedomWorks has made Tea Party conservatives the surprise community organizing force of the 2010 midterm elections, showing on-the-ground strength in races like the Republican primary for the Senate in Alaska on Tuesday, where the upstart Joe Miller was leading Senator Lisa Murkowski in a race that may take weeks to call.

“This movement, if we can turn out hundreds or thousands to the streets to protest and wave signs and yell and make an impact on public policy debate, then we can make a lot of difference,” Brendan Steinhauser, FreedomWorks’s chief organizer for the Tea Party groups, told the leaders gathered here. “But if those same people go and walk neighborhoods and do all the things we’re talking about, put up the door-hangers in the final 72 hours and make the phone calls, we may crush some of these guys.”

In recent months, FreedomWorks has teamed up with Glenn Beck, the biggest celebrity of the Tea Party movement to promote it. This weekend, with many Tea Party supporters descending on Washington for a rally that Mr. Beck is holding at the Lincoln Memorial, FreedomWorks is staging a convention where Tea Party candidates will address 1,600 activists....

Looks like Sarah, (and the tea party) is having a big impact on the elections so far! heehee I can't wait for November when the liberal losers are left to languish in obscurity contemplating how the stupid Americans that believe in freedom didn't buy into their agenda of free stuff for everyone provided by government inc!

Hopefully the progressive left will remain a bad memory in American history for all of eternity, but like the devil, their evil will probably resurface one day to tempt us with their lies. Ugh!

What are the Tea-Party's ideas to create jobs?What will they do about all the Americans who lost jobs due to outsourcing?How will they meet the demands of returning veterans?What are they going to do when the commercial re bubble bursts?What would they do with Iran?

I think whatever the Tea Party would do (if they actually were a party) would have to be better than what Obama and the democrats are doing. Heck, I'd say if they did the polar opposite of what Obama and the Democrats are doing they would be ahead of the game and probably hailed as heroes! heehee

Would love to hear an answer to lovemychris' questions. I hear a lot of vacuous slogans and empty nationalistic posturing from the TP but not a lot of new ideas. Care to enlighten us how they would do better?

Well the libtards had no problem voting for Obama and he only had a slogan. I think both parties should be asked those questions and it would be interesting to see who actually has ideas and who has a more detailed plan.

There is a start. If you take the time and research it, you'll see there are a host of ideas out there that will actually work, and have worked in the past, unlike the foolish, proven wrong, tired, progressive, plans pushed by Obama and his devious democrats.

I'm saying the Tea Party is NOT a party, just a group of American people that feel the government is fiscally irresponsible. That said, republican ideas will be more in line with Tea Party members, and that is evident in polls of the membership that clearly show a preponderance of republican, conservative and independent voters.

"just a group of American people that feel the government is fiscally irresponsible."

Okie dokie.

Looking forward to that HUGE impact they're going to have on the elections, because it appears to me that the most substantial impact they are having so far is promoting wacko candidates in the primaries who have very little chance of winning in the general elections.

Really? Like spending cuts? Like eliminating federal agencies that should never have been formed to begin with? Or like making sure our leaders pay their taxes?

What is making matters worse are the liberal elitist leftists that want the government to provide for everyone's prosperity! Oh please President Obama, build us a better society, make us all rich and happy and take whatever you need from whoever you need to take it from! Yes lets have the government provide an equal level of misery for us all...it's only fair!

Sounds Great - til you check the fine print.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Look at Joe Miller, teabagger from Alaska, endorsed by Sarah Palin.

He wants to do away witht he Department of Education

Phase out Social Security and Medicare.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Look at teabagger Sharon Angle in Nevada.

She wants to privatize Social Security.

Abolish the Federal Income Tax.

Get rid of the Energy and Education Departments.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look at Rand Paul *sigh*

He doesn't think equal rights provisions of the Civil RIghts Act should have been applied to private businesses. In other workds in hiring or serving customers, private businesses have a right to be as biased as they want.

He doesn't think the governement should regulate workplace safety.not just offices or warehouses - he thinks the coal mining industry can self-regulate. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Playing dress-up in early-American costumes is fun - and the rhetoric of hate speech is entertaing to all. But when push comes to shove, there's real issues to be addressed and the teabagger candidates are candidates for padded cells mostly.

You also don't look at the trade off's Doug. The only reason we have an Education Department and Department of Energy is because of Carter. Carter wanted to pander to the Reds...um Greens and teachers union's so bam, two new federal departments. Unnecessary. Especially Education. Since it's inception, despite spending more money per pupil, the education system in this country has been producing less and less educated high school graduates. Something isn't working.

Why shouldn't we privatize Social Security. At least then we'll take it away form Congress who have been raiding the Trust Fund to get money for pork barrel projects to get reelected for decades.

There is no need to apply the CRA to businesses. If some racist is stupid enough to deny a job to an extremely qualified individual because they happen to be black, then they're the ones who are going to have substandard employees and that means that a company that is not racist will outcompete the racist firm. That's what's known as a natural consequence, by the way.

Do you know what the tradeoff was for Workman's Compensation? Firms cannot be sued for safety violations. Why do you think that decades after the passage of Workman's Comp laws an entirely new federal bureaucracy needed to be created, OSHA? If worker's still had the right to sue for damages because of an unsafe workplace, you'd see much safer workplaces. But you're a committed Marxist and can't see where it would be in an "evil" businesses self-interest to keep the workplace as safe as possible to avoid lawsuits.

It's nice to see that you revert to form and ridicule at the end of your post. You lefties don't have anything but more failed policies to bring to the table. More taxing, more spending and more debt. Since you have no other alternatives, it's no surprise that more and more people are turning away from your self-destructive course and trying something different.

"If some racist is stupid enough to deny a job to an extremely qualified individual because they happen to be black, then they're the ones who are going to have substandard employees and that means that a company that is not racist will outcompete the racist firm. That's what's known as a natural consequence, by the way."

But you don't explain how institutionalized racism flourished for over 100 years in the Deep South after the end of the civil war til the passage and enforcemnt of the CRA. Where was 'natural consequence' for a century?

Doug, even today the South lags behind the rest of the nation in terms of standard of living, education, etc. That is the natural consequence of racism. If you look at all the economic progress of the latter half of the 19th century, where did it occur? The North and West. Why? Who wants to do business in a place where you have to cater to two "separate but equal" groups? Do you know which group was most against the Jim Crow law that made a black person stand up and give their seat to a white person? Bus owners. Why? Because they knew they'd lose custom if they had to enforce a stupid petty law like that. But once again, it was the government of the South that passed those laws and set back the advancement of their people by a century or more.

I took a Civil War class about a decade ago and one of the things we talked about was a man, whose name I cannot remember for the life of me, who traveled in the antebellum North and South. He wrote a book about what he found. Most remarkable was the difference between an average farming family in the North and South. In the North, you had freeholders, in England what would be called yeoman, prosperous middle class farmers. In the South? What became known as po' white trash. My great-grandmother's family fit that description for decades. It wasn't until most of them moved to the North in the early part of the 20th century that that changed. The Great Migration wasn't just black people from the South.

Another thing he found was the differences in farming methods, North and South. On average a hoe in the South had to be three times a thick as a hoe in the North. Why? Slaves would break anything thinner. So, right there, it cost more to use slave labor. Another factor was that plantation owners had to use oxen rather than the horses they used in the North. Why? Horses couldn't stand up to the abuse that oxen could that the slaves heaped on them. In fact, most of the negative stereotypes of blacks developed because of their passive-aggressive response to slavery. Something else that never developed in the North because of the general liberty of the Northern states.

So there's plenty of evidence that racism, slavery and other human rights violations hurt societies in the long run.

"Do you know what the tradeoff was for Workman's Compensation? Firms cannot be sued for safety violations. Why do you think that decades after the passage of Workman's Comp laws an entirely new federal bureaucracy needed to be created, OSHA? If worker's still had the right to sue for damages because of an unsafe workplace, you'd see much safer workplaces. "

WRONG!!! FALSE!!! LIE!!!!!!!!!!!

"Before the statutory establishment of workers' compensation, employees who were injured on the job were only able to pursue their employer through civil or tort law.[1] In the United Kingdom, the legal view of employment as a master-servant relationship required employees to prove employer malice or negligence, a high burden for employees to meet. Although employers' liability was unlimited, courts usually ruled in favor of employers, paying little attention to the full losses experienced by workers, including medical costs, lost wages, and loss of future earning capacity."

In other words, with WC you are covered for on-the-job injuries - without it you have to sue at your own expense - pitting your lawyer against the corprate lawyers of the eployer, and pay your lawyer (30%)? out of what you obtain. Which may take years while you are unemployed, and suffering.

"There is no need to apply the CRA to businesses. If some racist is stupid enough to deny a job to an extremely qualified individual because they happen to be black, then they're the ones who are going to have substandard employees and that means that a company that is not racist will outcompete the racist firm. That's what's known as a natural consequence, by the way."

Ldt, again and again you demonstrate that you lack knowledge of the real world. I worked for a major company that, despite it's "long standing policy of non-discrimination in employment," didn't hire a single black or woman engineer, accountant or manager until the civil rights act was passed. The first woman was accepted into the joint apprentice program in 1967, if memory serves. Detroit's main department store, J.L.Hudson, had no black clerks until forced to hire blacks by the civil rights act. And of course arguably the greatest pitcher of all time, Satchel Paige, didn't make it into the major leagues until he was well past his prime, after starring in the Negro leagues for 26 years. He was finally inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970. Contrary to your assertions, libertarianism does nothing to solve job discrimination, environmental pollution, worker safety, bankster ripoffs, etc.

The government has no basis for creating a Dept Of Education, nor should it be involved in a forced retirement plan, social security, or medicare, or medicaid or countless other agencies FTC, FEMA and yes even the IRS!

Those are state functions. If for example you wanted universal health care, you could vote for it with your feet, by moving to MA, or if you wanted a free college education you could move to a state that offers such a benefit. That's how it's supposed to work. We are not supposed to be oppressed by a central authority.

If you had been part of the continental Congress, you probably would have voted against forming a Union.

Why don't you take your ideas right to your own town? Every silly town should decide what lies they want to teach their children, how they want to treat minorities, whether or not to let old people die in poverty. Let the town decide everything!

We aren't in the 1800's anymore. We are a Nation and need governance as a Nation.

Yeah...I always though they were republicans in disguise....far right ones at that.

But not the original tea-party! It's a shame that Fox hi-jacked it for their own agenda....$$$$$$

I read somewhere that Murdoch is a-political. Said he didn't care about ideology as long as it made him money.... That's why you can have all these Fox-watchers hate muslims, but have the second biggest contributer to Fox be a wealthy arab sheik!!

"it's no surprise that more and more people are turning away from your self-destructive course and trying something different."

That's why we got rid of republicans, and you want to bring them back!!You refuse to give Obama a chance, and that is very spoiled and childish behavior. In fact, I'm calling them the Pee Party from now on. Just like little kids...

No, actually I don't chris. I see Republicans like McCain and Lindsey Graham who are just as dangerous as any Obamaite. In fact I'd like to see the destruction of both political parties. If there is anything our two-party system does is limit choice. If Obama had shown any willingness to listen to the people, not the opposition, but the people; or do you really think that 60% opposition to the healthcare reform bill is listening to the people.

But then again I forgot that you are a little kid, resorting to name calling and puerile innuendo; instead of, you know, talking stuff out and trying to reach out. So I wonder, what are you going to do when all of your supposed "leaders" are tossed out on their rear ends in November.

That is a laugh coming from you. You always insult me personally...I am insulting the tea party!You called me delusional, one of your pals said I'm on welfare......you people attack personally. I attack the Tea Party. So----you grow up. Have a kid, raise a family, work for 35 years and have a liberal tell YOU you are a lazy no-good bum...wouldn't happen. Libs aren't as nasty as gopsters.---see?? the whole group, not personal!

Obama listened to me....don't I count?Unfortunately, unlike the repubs in charge, Obama listens to everyone...including the ones who do nothing but smear, lie and obstruct any progress.That's it. From now on they are the Backwards Party to go along with the Pee Party.And as Hagbard Celine ALWAYS says: never whistle while you're pissing....you might get hit with some Backwards Pee!!!!!

Tea Partiers think they are supporting a grass roots movement when actually they are the pawns of the infamous Koch brothers and a couple of other billionaires who are manipulating them in order to line their own pockets.

According to the NY Times the Tea Party is likely to be a significant factor in 11 out of 18 competitive Senate races. In Republican primaries the Tea Party has ousted Republican incumbents supported by the GOP and brought about the nomination of candidates who are more vulnerable to more moderate Democrat nominees:

Sharron Angle, nominated with Tea Party support to run against vulnerable incumbent Democrat Harry Reid, is unlikely to win despite Reid's unpopularity in Nevada.

Rand Paul, Ken Buck and Ron Johnson, Tea Party candidates who won GOP nominations in Kentucky, Colorado and Wisconsin are likely to face tough sledding in November as Democrats try to pin them to the Tea Party platform planks calling for

Tea Party support is expected to have a similar mixed effect in representatives for the House of Representatives in November.

In Florida's 12th Congressional district, currently held by a Republican, 3rd party Tea Party candidate is expected to take votes from the GOP candidate, handing the election to Democrat Lori Edwards.

In New York's 23rd Congressional District Tea Party support for Doug Hoffman in a special election last year led the moderate GOP candidate to drop out of the race and give her support to the Democrat in November.

The Tea Party's effect will be interesting to watch as the election campaign unfolds and the final results are determined in November.

i don't think the tea partiers need to do anything. the President is doing it all himself. he is really slipping in the polls, according to the news reports this morning. plus many Democrats (like me) said they will be voting Republican for the first time. that's bad when you alienate one of your own

Tuesday was the official first day of the political season, with Labor Day finally behind us, and I woke up to this screaming headline in Politico's Playbook: "New wave of polls points to Nov. blowout - Stu Rothenberg moves 20 House races toward GOP." Cable TV was dominated by similar apocalyptic reports from the future, mainly based on two new polls with bad news for Democrats...

That's terrible news. It's also a sign that maybe voters aren't paying attention yet. What have the Republicans offered to prove they would deal with the flagging economy any better since they wrecked it under George W. Bush? Disgraced former House GOP leader Tom Delay promised his party would "repeal" everything the Democrats have done. That's inspiring! Can't you just imagine John Boehner inviting Lily Ledbetter to an unsigning ceremony, when they undo the equal pay law that bears her name? I'm getting a little teary. Or a big Senate ritual where Mitch McConnell brings 20-something jobseekers who are, for now, safely on their parents' health insurance plans, to ceremonially strip them of their protection. There are so many heart-warming possibilities. The partying on Wall Street that would greet a GOP win requires no imaginative satire; that would actually happen...

The $64 question is how the radical Tea Party insurgents will do against the Democrats in November. Right now a Tea Tard named Rocky Raczkowski is leading against my moderate incumbent Congressman Gary Peters. As I predicted earlier, the Tea Party is a problem for both the GOP and the Dems. This is not a good year for incumbents.

This is almost too easy to refute...Your childish characterization of the Tea Party movement is without intellectual content or persuasion...The Tea Party movement is about ECONOMICS, stupid...And they are not comprised of just Republicans...There are soured Democrats, thinking independents, and first time political activists that have had it with the corruption, incompetence, and disingenuousness of big government...Save your ad hominem schoolyard pronouncements for your friends on the left...Get over it...you are sounding like Ralph Deeds...

The Tea Party is an assorted bag of libertarian and social conservative fruits and nuts offering slogans but no coherent plans or proposals--libertarians, social conservatives, birthers, anti-abortionists, anti-immigrant nativists, white racists and, yes, some sincere but ignorant and fearful good Americans who are clueless about what's causing the problems that concern them or realistic, constructive solutions to deal with them.

The Tea Party is about ideology and self-interest--NOTHING more. These dupes are funded by well healed Crapitalists (and their surrogates like Dick Armey) who exploit and profit from the fear and anger that resides in all too many ill-informed people in America today. They watch the Jerry Springer version of the news and believe it. And "soured" is the operative word--sour, enraged and emotional people who strike out without thinking of the consequences.

You may consider yourself to be an intellectual but, in candor and with all due respect to you as an individual, you seem to be another angry dupe who just thinks he knows the truth. If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like it needs another nail.

But in becoming one of the movement’s most successful players by helping Tea Party favorites oust incumbents or trounce rivals in four states, Mr. Russo is also fast becoming among the most divisive.

Unlike many of the newly energized outsiders who have embraced Tea Party ideals, Mr. Russo, 63, is a longtime Republican operative who got his start as an aide to Ronald Reagan and later raised money and managed media strategy for a string of other politicians, including former Gov. George E. Pataki of New York. His history and spending practices have prompted some former employees and other Tea Party activists to question whether he is committed to, or merely exploiting, their cause.

Mr. Russo’s group, based in California, is now the single biggest independent supporter of Tea Party candidates, raising more than $5.2 million in donations since January 2009, according to federal records. But at least $3 million of that total has since been paid to Mr. Russo’s political consulting firm or to one controlled by his wife, according to federal records.

What would we do without the Tea Party? For well over a year, this rollicking muster of citizens—mocked and feared in equal measure by the Democrats and, indeed, by many Republicans—have offered more than just whizz-bang political entertainment. Starting out as a loose-knit posse of loudly disaffected conservatives, the movement has become better organized and improbably daring; in fact, it is now a full-blown political uprising. As we gird our national loins for the mid-term elections in November, here is a brisk primer on the movement.

A is for anger, the jet-fuel of a movement that Nancy Pelosi, in a rare moment of wit, pooh-poohed as Astroturf (i.e., not grassroots). Tell that to Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate nominee seeking to unseat Pelosi’s confrere, Harry Reid. She is the archetypal Tea Party insurgent: she checks all the ideological boxes, but would you have her home to dinner with the kids?

B is for Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, the two gaudiest Tea Partiers in the American media, and for Scott Brown, the Massachusetts senator whose astonishing election to Ted Kennedy’s seat in February was the earliest indication that the Tea Party amounted to more than just a rabble of birthers (although it does, to be sure, have in its ranks more than a few who believe that the president’s birth-certificate is an immaculate deception).

C is for caricatures, which deride the tea-partiers as any or all of the following: racists, homophobes, Nazis, fascists, misanthropes, polygamists, Bible-thumpers, rubes and rednecks.

D is for the demographics that suggest that some of this abuse is a tad unfair: 56% of Tea Partiers have an income that’s higher than the national average; and 37% have graduate or postgraduate degrees. “Don’t Tread On Me” is the movement’s edgy slogan, and Jim DeMint, the ideologically narcissist South Carolina senator, its frisky mascot.

E is for the two things that get every Tea Partier’s blood pressure up: elites and the establishment. The former are, in the movement’s telling, a bunch of unpatriotic, snobbish pantywaists who tend to reside on the East or the West coast; the latter is the source of all political evil, to wit, bailouts, deficits, and the like.

F is for the movement’s sturdiest pillar, Fox News, which hasn’t so much covered the Tea Party as sponsored it, its blustering anchors making sure that the uprising never lacks for air-time. Another pillar is Freedom Works, Dick Armey’s outfit, which has given the movement some of its organizational coherence and respectability—and handy sums of money.

G is for Government, which can never be small enough for a Tea Partier, and Tim Geithner, Lord North to Obama’s King George in the eyes of the movement many of whose members believe (erroneously) that the Treasury Secretary has links to the diabolical Goldman Sachs. (Tea partiers’ loathing for Big Government is matched only by their detestation of Wall Street.)

H is for health-care reform (aka ObamaCare), the most potent single issue that makes Tea Partiers see red—in every figurative sense. Thank God, then, for Friedrich Hayek, whose ideas animate the Tea Party—whether all of its members know it or not. Certainly, at the more cerebral end of the movement, the Austrian economist is a patron saint.

I is for Islam and illegal immigration, subjects that are, for Tea Partiers, an endless source of hyperventilation. Both are regarded as existential threats to America, and bring out the uglier face of the movement, whether it be in reaction to mosques near Ground Zero or Mexicans in Arizona.

This is why Romney lost. He displayed poor cognitive reasoning. He actually said that the widely known fact that smaller classroom size in schools is advantageous to students was misinformation perpetuated by teacher's...

Would the same outrage still exist? Or did Obama's presidency ignite the flame?I tend to think that Obama being elected certainly was fuel on the fire -- that is to say, the Tea Party would not be as big or popular if...

I am not an American, but what goes on in the USA is important to the world.Lincoln was a Republican and freed the slaves. One would expect black Americans to generally vote Republican. But they don't.How did this come...

I am taken back to the site 'unskewed polls' where the conservatives were saying that the mainstream polling system was unfairly skewed in favor of Mr. Obama. So, I bet I could not find them now anywhere among all the...